


Compromises

by seekingferret



Series: Uncompromising [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3463307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/pseuds/seekingferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons, uncompromising and compromised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compromises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [failsafe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/gifts).



Simmons knew she had to be careful. One drop too many, too fast, and the titration would be ruined. No result. Scrub the test. Which was what she wanted, but she needed to see something first, before she overtitered. She glanced around the room. She tried to make it look like she was just stretching her arms, clearing up a cramp from holding her hand steady on the burette's stopcock. Nobody was paying attention to her. Ruiz was eating a bagel and trying to pretend he was working. Janssen was focused on rewriting the code for her gravitational simulation. Anders was inspecting his gas mask and preparing for the nerve gas test he was performing that afternoon. There were no eyes on her, for the moment. Now was the time to move. 

Ah, there it was. For one second, as she looked on, the solution glowed bright blue. Then she let another drop spill into the dish and the color vanished again. Transparent liquid was all that remained. Another useless dead end experiment, she would log it in her notebook. But she knew better.

Tetra-cyclo-4-5 butylase!

That knowledge could not be taken away from her as long it was truly only hers. Still, a part of her nagged about the lab notebook. That little voice in her head that constantly asked "What would Fitz do?" would not shut up. Lab notebooks were sacrosanct. They were where a scientist recorded the truths discovered in the laboratory, and only the truths. Data entered in the notebook could not be falsified, could not be changed, could not be massaged to fit a theory. The continued progress of science depended on nobody ever doing what she had just done. Forgive me, Saint Newton, for I have sinned.

That night in bed, she pulled her blanket over her head and whispered the name to herself, so quietly that the wall-mounted bugs that she had upgraded for HYDRA last month wouldn't hear.

"Tetra-cyclo-4-5 butylase! What a beautiful name!" And the voice in her head quieted, if just for a time.


End file.
